Armoury
by The Sugarfaerie
Summary: Babydoll watches some of the other dancers get ready for the night ahead. Slightly dark. Features Nini, China Doll and Schoolgirl, amongst others.


I'm settling into my Moulin Rouge phase… I'm keen to explore the darker side of the Moulin Rouge, as it is touched on in the film (the extended can can dance shows this side a lot, or maybe that's just me interpreting it that way) and, as nasty as it is; it's quite fascinating to write about (or at least it is to my twisted mind). Makes a nice change from writing essays on _Wuthering Heights_.

Disclaimer: Honestly, if I owned Moulin Rouge, would I be here writing about it? No, I'd be out there filming the sequel. Then there's also the slight glitch that I have neither the innovation nor the talent of Baz Luhrman, the god of cinematic techniques.

Armoury 

After so many years spent simply observing, you quickly realise how much you can learn about a person simply by the way they prepare themselves for work.

I call it work, yes, though it seems a strange job description to have. But that is truly what it is that our lives revolve around- work. Work, money and Absinthe, to be exact. I wonder at what point women first started selling themselves to men? There must have been one. I must admit that I know little about history. In fact, I know little about pretty much anything outside the glittering walls of the Moulin Rouge. But what I do know about is people, and boy, do you learn that lesson fast.

I always dress quickly, having become so adept at it now. My voluminous pink dress, though frilly, is not especially difficult to put on, and I rarely remove my makeup so that all I need is a little touch up here and there. This gives me a few minutes to myself before we throw ourselves into the arms of waiting customers. A few minutes simply to observe.

Beside the tiny square of dressing table that I've claimed for myself is Schoolgirl. She twitches as she tugs on the collar of her costume. Despite the similarities in our appeal to men, we rarely speak. I make my friendships elsewhere and Schoolgirl can't be bothered. She seems the most unlikely person to work in a dance hall. I know from overhearing brief snatches of conversation from between her and Juno that she worked as a streetwalker before Harold picked her up, though why he did is beyond me. She is not especially talented, nor will she ever become a great dancer from hard work. And yet, she doesn't seem to care. She drifts through the choreographed dances like an absent-minded ghost, a vague smile on her lips as some potential customer waves her over.

Schoolgirl has never told us her name. Perhaps she prefers the anonymity; perhaps she has simply forgotten what she used to be called. It happens.

Schoolgirl gives one final tug on her collar, still twitching slightly. She's worked here for two years, yet she still pales before we enter for our opening act. Maybe she's just eternally nervous.

At the other end of the dressing room, Nini has asked Marie to help her tighten her corset in a manner that is oddly polite for her. It's strange for her to do this; Nini was always an independent one, insisting on doing everything herself and managing it, too. Yet today she is strangely pale, sucking on a cigarette as Marie binds her tight.

"Nini," Arabia speaks up from down the table, "if I didn't know better, I'd swear you were nervous."

Nervous is the description I too would give, if it wasn't for the fact that that word used in the same sentence as Nini is unimaginable. "Come off it," Nini snarls, inhaling hard on her cigarette. But her hand is shaking.

"Now now, there's no need to jump down everyone's throats," Marie says firmly as she ties the laces of Nini's corset. It's black, and Nini's second best one, I've heard her say. Her best one was slit open by a man who was too impatient to get his hands on what he'd payed for. Nini swore about that one for weeks.

Nini is described as cold by most of the other girls, and in many ways she is; always filling the air with her sarcastic commentary and holding herself diligently to Harold's rule about not falling in love; the only rule she ever lived by. And yet I can't help getting the feeling that underneath her layers of makeup, she's as miserable as the rest of us. Maybe that's why she applies the kohl so thickly.

I remember one time about three months ago, when I walked into the dressing room during the night to fetch a necklace I'd left behind and saw Nini as I don't think any of us had ever seen her before. She was half kneeling, half lying on the ground, wearing nothing but a ragged dressing gown and her face battered like a crushed porcelain doll. Marie let Nini's head rest against her knees as Nini spat a mixture of blood and vomit into a bowl in Marie's hand, her other hand gently stroking Nini's tangled hair. "Easy, love," she'd whispered as Nini shook. "It worked out alright."

Chocolat had saved Nini from being beaten to death. It was just another part of his job- rescuing us girls when a customer got too rough. I hung back a little behind a curtain, repulsed, yet still fascinated by the scene. I heard Chocolat tell Marie that this particular customer had beaten Nini with an empty Absinthe bottle as well as hitting her. Marie had simply rolled her eyes. "Men," she had muttered bitterly.

Chocolat gently placed some money in Nini's lap (he'd taken it into his own hands to liberate the customer of Nini's as yet unpaid fee after he'd knocked him unconscious, something he always made sure to do), and I had chosen that moment to leave and avoid discovery, which was something neither Nini nor Marie would have appreciated.

I couldn't tell wether Nini was crying or not.

At the moment Nini is certainly not crying, but she doesn't look happy, either. Maybe she is meeting the abusive customer again? Harold turned a blind eye when any of us left our rooms stained with blood and bruises. "Anything that brings in money, dears," he would tell us. "Do anything that brings in money."

Nini gets Marie to bind her corset extra tight, as if this could somehow protect her from whatever she's fearing.

Arabia makes another comment and Nini automatically snaps back, a routine developed over countless insults being made in the dressing rooms between the two of them, wether they were made seriously or in jest. The Four Whores of the Apocalypse bicker with each other all the time, despite the fact that they are a team on the dance floor. Perhaps they resent being labelled as a group, perhaps they resent each other, I don't know. Maybe throwing insults at each other is their way of showing friendship.

"Babydoll, we have to start lining up soon," China Doll reminds me quietly. China Doll is a fabulous dancer, but a soft talker. She's sometimes even talked down by us lower ranking whores.

"I know," I reply, sliding down from the table where I've been sitting. "I'm ready."

"No you're not," Arabia calls over, interrupting her verbal exchange with Nini. "You're eye's all wonky."

A quick glance into the mirror proves she's right, I must have slipped when applying kohl to one of my eyes. I grab a handkerchief to blot it just as Nini pulls her long black gloves over her scarred wrists, now wearing her splendid yellow dress I've always envied. "Practice makes perfect, Babydoll," she says to me, and as usual I can't tell wether that's an insult or not.

Sighing, I take my place in the many lines of can can girls, every one of them thinking only of one thing: money. I glance around at our ruffled skirts and stockings that hide our scarred legs, our immaculate makeup that covers fading black eyes. How adept we've become in hiding our battle wounds.

Our fake smiles are in place, our corsets laced and our skirts held tight, our perfect battle armour.


End file.
